Here I used KPT6 equalizer to sharpen the details, like the eyes and hair (compare with original to see a big difference...with KPT filter you can see individual hairs!) while giving the skin a soft focus look.

Phyllis - a beautiful pic to begin with - thanks for sharing. I like your 'enhanced' look.
Jill - good job on the texture and frame.
Jerry - yes, a tough act to follow on this one....very nice and I like the matte/frame
Herman and Amanda - nice painterly looks
Here's my rendition....sepia tone....painted some of the detail/color back in the eyes/lips....blur
Bill C

Jill, Jerry, Amanda, all nice paintings...all different styles, but all lovely.

Bill C, I just love the simplicity and softness you achieved! By the way, this pic was from Alex, so he deserves your thanks. Psst...you really have to start reading the blurbs that accompany the mini challenge originals.

Ken, the party colors and the twinkle in her eye express the personality she shows even more...very imaginative and effective.

Phyllis - I guess I was in too much of a rush to get to the digital darkroom! Thanks for reminding me to get the 'whole story'.
Alex - yes, a beautiful girl - a beautiful picture! Thanks for sharing with us!
With kind regards,
Bill C

Well, I am not a he, but a she.
My name is Alexandra Macedo.
This is a photo I took from my 4 year old cousin.
I am not an artist and only am learning photoshop
on free time (not much) for a month or two.
I am trying to make a nice rendition for this one too, but could not make one I like till now.
There is a bigger photo in my gallery.

Thank you for the image, Alexandra. She is a beautiful girl and you have captured it all!
Beautiful work by everone here on this! I sought to emphasize the eyes. If ever a real girl had Renoir eyes, she does! So that's the way I went, with some romantic, soft color; some spray strokes, and a lot of curves detail

Bill C, she looks wrapped in cotton or in fog! She's so pretty and soft.

Bill M, I love the textures and muted colors.

Amanda, your oil rendition is wonderful.

For this one, I played with the dodge/negative layer, only used a soft filter at its highest settings, making a soft colored outline. Merged this layer, made one layer at multiply mode, another at normal mode but low opacity. Then I added a light texture.

Great work.. I especially like Bills. The lighting.. and her eyes.. Wow!

Here is mine. I was just playing with layers and masks. I first made a sketch using the Gausian Blur, and put a crosshatch filter on it. I then duplicated the original layer and ran a watercolor filter on it. I masked that layer and painted in the background. I then created another layer from the original and played with the saturation, masked it out, and painted in her face very lightly.

Tried something new for this one. Made two copies. One I did with Xero's lineart in monochrome, the other in VP color pencil, with everything turned to -5 except for focus. Merged them together and I liked the result so much I couldn't bare to reduce it to fit the max upload size. So I put it here: http://www.fractographics.com/catarina.jpg

Tried something new for this one. Made two copies. One I did with Xero's lineart in monochrome, the other in VP color pencil, with everything turned to -5 except for focus. Merged them together and I liked the result so much I couldn't bare to reduce it to fit the max upload size. So I put it here: http://www.fractographics.com/catarina.jpg

AmyHutton

Amy,

Very nice! I am wondering about your statement "Merged them together". Did you layer them with the top set to 50% opacity, or what?

Very nice! I am wondering about your statement "Merged them together". Did you layer them with the top set to 50% opacity, or what?

Thanks,
Jeff

No, I took the lazy way out. PSP8 allows you to use an ARITHMETIC command which will add or subtract or multiply or average or do a bunch of other stuff when merging 2 images together. A lot less clicking thatn when you use layers.

During my recent "getaway," I was reading about Painter 8 (Painter 8 Creativity, by Jeremy Sutton. It's simply an excellent intro book, especially if you're into (or trying to be into) portrait-type photo art.) and wanted to try a couple things.

I decided to dredge up another Mini-challenge that's been idle for awhile...

The base image was prepared in Photoshop (Smart Blur/Normal, Posterize), then closed and opened in Painter 8 where brushstrokes were applied using Blender brushes. One of the things I picked up in Painter 8 Creativity was the concept of limiting the number of colors in a creation. One way to achieve that is to utilize the posterize command, a common function in many image editors. A Photoshop alternative is the Cutout filter.

I kind of liked how this turned out brush-texture-wise. Unfortunately the background got pretty muddled up and I wished way too late that I'd removed it at the beginning, but "Oh, well." Live and learn.

Welcome to RetouchPRO. Congrats on taking the leap and posting a pic. Give yourself a big HIGH 5 for that. The lurker to participant ratio for this forum is about 550 to 1 at last count.

Thanks for your kind words, but don't ever worry that your pics will be compared to mine or any one elses. While that may be the culture in some venues, it's not that way here. What's way more important is trying new techniques, experimenting, sharing ideas and methods, and having fun. Fun + learning = a great sport.

Don't ever feel that you need to apply X degrees of manipulation in order to meet minimum qualifications. In many cases "subtle" changes/manipulations are just right. You're the artist. You make the call.

In any event, glad you jumped in. Hope to see more of your creations in the future.

Catarina is certainly a charming subject - Here is my very much beginner's attempt . I *endeavoured* to follow Stephen LeQuier (aka Trimoon) excellent impressionist tutorial however I can't blame him for the outcome.

I had some difficulty getting an attachment to stick...Thanks to Danny for sorting me out.

Jeff, I'm not sure I can tell you exactly, but, I'll try to get close (I use PSP8).

First, I open the image and close the original. Then I duplicate, so, I have two or three copies (minimize the extras).

I make a pencil sketch of one, that will be the base layer.
I smudge the lines on the pencil sketch.
I wrote a Script that makes lines from the image (that's sort of like a PS action).
I add the lines image as new layer (changing the opacity and smudging the lines, if needed). Some times the lines are added last, depending on the photo.
I do a lot of hand work, smudging/dodging/burning etc. (especially the hair).

Last, I copy one of the images (no changes other than any corrections that are needed) and paste it as the top layer.
Lower the opacity until it's as pale or colorful as you want.
Some times more hand work is needed.
Sharpen a little with USM, or, just sharpen the eyes with the Sharpen tool.

Some where, along the line, I softened the background with the soften tool.

The problem is, I do each one different and sort of as I go. I have trouble remembering the sequence or exactly what I did.

I posted one under Mountain-man, I used the lines on it too, but, as you can see, it came out much different.

Jayikta...
I really like your posts of Catrina, especially the watercolor effect. Could you share how you did it? I've been lurking a while and am on the lookout for any help I can get with watercolor effects.

Jayikta...
I really like your posts of Catrina, especially the watercolor effect. Could you share how you did it? I've been lurking a while and am on the lookout for any help I can get with watercolor effects.

Thanks so much for sharing.

Welcome, Chipmonk...

Glad you jumped in with a question. Jaykita is very generous when it comes to sharing "how to." Stand by for a response.

Jayikta...
I really like your posts of Catrina, especially the watercolor effect. Could you share how you did it? I've been lurking a while and am on the lookout for any help I can get with watercolor effects.

Thanks so much for sharing.

Hi chipmunk, Thanks a ton for the appreciation. Danny has said such nice things about my generosity, so how can i not try to help! But its been so long since i posted those 2. Shall do my best.
For my first creation, in ps7 -level adjustments to brighten and soften image. Then I used lighting effects for a bit of texture and oil painted look. Filter-render-lighting effects-style default, light type directional, ambience +57, ht 50. I saved and used this image to work on in painter 4. In this remarkable software, in the color palette there is a little box that says "use clone colors" - if i click on that, any brush i use turns into a lovely little clone tool!! I learnt this little trick which i'd like to share with all of you here. The more recent corel painter 8 has a clone symbol in the tools palette, isnt that right? You can well imagine, the possibilities are endless !!
Re my 2nd creation, easier. I have used a fill layer first of all to give the original catarina a bit of color. You can color a new blank layer with low opac brushes and a variety of colors and use multiply blend. Also use levels to brighten and soften image. I did another sketch layer the usual way i.e. with color dodge and gaussian blur. Increased the blur so i got a stronger sketch. I also used this little jewel called "Oscar's watercolor filter" in photobrush as main layer. Then in painter using above method of cloning, i worked my way thro, and then used the sketch layer - darken blend.
I'm sorry, this is as much as i can remember since it's been a while. Hope some of this will help.

What a gorgeous little girl! I did so much that was experimental (for me) That I can't recall the steps correctly. However, basically....PSP8.01

Adjusted Col Bal, B & C, etc. duped the original layer.
Smudged her hair.
Filter/Artistic Brushes and fiddled with one of my own settings/oil paint.
Erased this effect only to allow her face to show.
Merged both layers.
Face - Spent a lot of time experimenting with smudge tool (using different brushes, different sizes, different opacity etc). Also Lighten/Darken,
Hue/Sat tools. Tools I don't normally spend enough time trying out.
I still didn't like the Oil Paint Effect on her hair, so I smudged it to smooth once again. Decided to Buzz the final result a little too.

Wonderful Sidis. I LOVE your style. And now I have to have a good laugh. hahahahah....notes.....hahahahah. What are they? Notes? Who me? Not me. I'm way to involved in the creative process to take notes. That's why I almost always use screenshots.

Here's a Painter8 digital watercolor. The background was hand painted with the finer mop brush. Caterina was cloned mostly with the fine tip brush (trying a bit of Jaykita's method). I didn't like the texture I got in her skin, so I smoothed it out with the 'just-add-water' blender. I did most of the fly-away hair by hand to keep the background in tact. This started with a 2B pencil sketch outline (traced by hand) toned way down in the final result. I like painting/cloning with the pencil outline as a reference. The tracing paper function makes it too hard to see what you're doing in many cases. This one turned out good enough to frame, so I did that too.

Here's a Painter8 digital watercolor. The background was hand painted with the finer mop brush. Caterina was cloned mostly with the fine tip brush (trying a bit of Jaykita's method). I didn't like the texture I got in her skin, so I smoothed it out with the 'just-add-water' blender. I did most of the fly-away hair by hand to keep the background in tact. This started with a 2B pencil sketch outline (traced by hand) toned way down in the final result. I like painting/cloning with the pencil outline as a reference. The tracing paper function makes it too hard to see what you're doing in many cases. This one turned out good enough to frame, so I did that too.

-Mark

Mark:

You sure are making GREAT strides with Painter. This one is a standout.

I know what you mean about Painter's Tracing Paper function. I prefer the flexibility of a duplicated layer which I can turn on/off and tweak opacity.

I was looking for a good image to practice oil painting on and found this cute little girl. I love the work that has been done on her by everyone. I used Painter and the various oil cloners and brushes. I did quite a bit of editing and color adjustments in PS before I painted, and also the texture.

I was looking for a good image to practice oil painting on and found this cute little girl. I love the work that has been done on her by everyone. I used Painter and the various oil cloners and brushes. I did quite a bite on editing and color adjustments in PS before I painted, and also the texture.

Cathy

I especially like the texture work you did on this one, Cathy. Nicely done.

I haven't ventured into do-it-myself textures. I pretty much stick with ones included with Photoshop, Painter and ones Trimoon has graciously made available for download at his site, www.Trimoon.com.

I often use Painter's "Grainy Blender" brushes to which I apply a little Unsharp Mask to give the effect a little more personality. On occasion I apply the canvas effect via the Alian Skin "Splat" plugin, too.